Grounded in Heritage Lunch with the Arts features Kentucky author Angela Correll
Posted: Sunday, May 3, 2015 8:21 am
By JOSH BOELTER
Cover Art for the novel “Grounded”
Ten years — that’s how long it took Angela Correll between the time she first had the idea for a book before her novel “Grounded” was published in 2013.
“The story first came to me in a creative writing community education course in Lancaster,” says Correll. “I didn’t know how to write fiction, so when I tried getting the story down on paper, I realized how much I needed to learn first.” She put the story aside and took fiction writing courses before she started writing. And rewriting. “I rewrote the novel and then revised it so many times I lost count,” says Correll. “After that was the long road of finding an agent and a publisher.”
“Grounded” tells the story of Annie Taylor, a New York City flight attendant who loses her apartment and ends up back home on the family farm in Kentucky. That summer on the family farm brings romantic entanglements and Annie is forced to come to terms with her past.
It’s a Kentucky novel from a Kentucky author. Correll is a Danville native, a seventh generation Kentuckian who lives on a farm with her husband, Jess, and an assortment of farm animals. She is also co-owner of a family of businesses that include Bluebird Cafe, Wilderness Road Guesthouses and Kentucky Soaps & Such, all in downtown Stanford.
Correll will take a break from her businesses and writing to talk about her novel “Grounded” at Lunch with the Arts this Wednesday at the Community Arts Center. The timing is perfect, as “Grounded” has been adapted for the stage and that adaptation will debut at Pioneer Playhouse this summer. Heather Henson, Managing Director of Pioneer Playhouse said it’s not easy to come up with five plays that blend together in a season, but the 2015 season came together more quickly than most. “Grounded felt perfect nestled between a highly silly French farce and a nail biting Sherlock Holmes mystery,” says Henson. “Our audiences get to go to a lot of different places over the course of ten weeks — and that’s always exciting.”
“Playwright Chelsea Marcantel did a beautiful job of adapting the novel to a play,” adds Correll. “When I read the play, I was very pleased with it. In fact, Chelsea did a couple of things that made me think, ‘I wish I had written that in the book!’ and that speaks to her understanding of the characters.”
Guests at Lunch with the Arts will get an insight into this process. Correll will share thoughts about her writing journey and Heather and Robby Henson will also join Correll to discuss the stage adaptation. Fans of the book will be pleased to hear that Correll is working on a sequel called “Guarded” that picks up Annie and Beulah’s story about six weeks after the events of “Grounded.”
IF YOU GO
Lunch with the Arts
Angela Correll, noon Wednesday at CAC
$10 in advance (includes lunch, must register online by 5 p.m. Monday)
or $5 at the door for program only
